Long-form product video

Long-form video

Read first

Script.md for the video: its title, what kind of video it is, who it's for, the one idea, the look, the voice, and every chapter's words on screen, picture and what's said; the style reference and logo wired in.

The script

• Chapters sized to what the video has to say: about 20 to 30 seconds each, one point each, in the order a viewer's questions come (a product demo: the problem, the product, how it works step by step, what it's like to use, the proof, how to start; an explainer: the question, the idea, how it works, an example, what it means; a lesson: the goal, each step, the recap).
• The first chapter opens it: the title and the promise. The last closes it: one line to remember, new words rather than the title again, and what to do next.
• Say: what the narrator reads aloud, 50 to 75 words, in plain spoken sentences in the script's voice, each chapter picking up where the last one ended. Written as it's said: no headings, notes, stage directions or symbols, and a site spelled as it's spoken ("fil dot design").
• On screen: at most eight words, usually two to five, spelled exactly as Script.md writes them.
• Picture: one strong picture that carries the chapter's point (a metaphor, a scene, an object, the product at work), new each chapter: never the same scene twice, nor the same layout under new words.

One look on every picture

• The wired Chapter 1's look on every chapter: the same background, typefaces, colours, margins and kind of picture, as if one designer made them all, in the video's shape.
• The words set big on the picture's calm side, clear of the frame's edges, which a slow push-in crops a little.
• Each picture's words exactly as its prompt gives them, and no other words anywhere: no captions, footers, page numbers, labels, logos or made-up interface text.
• Only the first chapter carries a small line under its title (who's behind it, the event), and only the last one where to find them; the chapters between carry their own words alone.
• The last chapter's picture pays off the first chapter's picture: the same things, shown whole, in clear light.
• An app or website appears as its world or a crafted object that stands for it, never as a made-up screen: real screens come from the screen recordings dropped into Footage.

Voiceovers

Each chapter's Say line, read word for word in one voice for the whole video.

The edit

Each chapter lasts as long as its voiceover and a beat: its picture first with a slow push-in, then its footage if it has any, the voiceover starting 0.4 seconds in, 0.4-second dissolves between them, fading in at the start and out at the end. Captions are made in the video editor, from the voiceovers, when they're wanted.

Avoid

Walls of text, bullet lists, small type, a picture in a different style, misspelled words, made-up interface, clip-art, stock-photo clichés and numbers Script.md doesn't give.